Apologies to Mr. Paetsch

Don’t expect Thomas Vanek or Patrick Kaleta in the lineup tonight. That means Nathan Paetsch will play around six useless minutes and the Sabres won’t be able to roll four lines consistently.

Naturally, he scored the game’s first goal and regular commenter Becky made sure I wouldn’t forget it.

So I’m sorry Nathan. I’m sorry you’re stuck playing forward because you peaked as a defenseman and you’ll never be able to cash in like Brian Campbell did (even though you looked like the next big thing in your rookie season).

In all fairness, he did play 9:57 on Monday. We’ll ignore the fact he didn’t touch the ice in the last six-and-a-half minutes of the third period or in overtime and played the least number of shifts of anyone on the team.